Ah, back to Bleak House. Chapter V contains the delicious description of Krook’s rag-and-bone shop.  It’s so vivid that it makes you see and even smell the place, with its towers of junk always threatening to topple over, like an entire Goodwill store crammed into one tiny room. It’s testament to how the Victorians recycled before the word was even invented. Very little had to be thrown away in Victorian times: if you had leftover junk like bones, grease, clothing, or scraps of fabric, paper, or metal, there was always …

So I got a Kindle for my birthday last Friday, and reading on it is such a compelling experience that it’s inspired me to revisit a few classic British novels. I’m starting with Bleak House, which I tore through (as much as anyone can ‘tear through’ an 800+ page book) in preparation for my Ph.D. exams more years ago than I care to remember.
Re-reading books after a few years have passed is always interesting: you’re a little older, you’ve had some new experiences, all the cells in your body …

Outlaws of the Marsh, awesome as it may be, is basically a man’s book. The primary relationships it describes are brotherly (its alternate title is All Men Are Brothers), and women, when they’re not relegated to the sidelines, are portrayed as lustful, catty deceivers who betray the men who rescue them. Twice in twenty episodes the same storyline is repeated: good man marries poor beauty, only to have her cheat on him. He forgives her and even offers her a no-strings divorce so she can be with her lover, but …

Once, I helped out at a church daycare, looking after eight one- to two-year-olds while their moms were at Bible study (translation: coffee and chatting, though, after learning how active toddlers can be, I was happy to help those moms get a break). One week, a woman who usually watched over the under-ones came to assist me and the (wonderful) homeschooled teenager who was my partner-in-toddler-wrangling. And she was absolutely horrified that we did not wash all the toys and spray them down with Lysol after the kids went …

Pride and Prejudice and comic books seem to belong to two separate universes: one’s high tea with scones and clotted cream, the other’s hot buttered popcorn; one’s a hike through the Cotswolds, while the other’s a snowboard ride down a slope with plenty of moguls. But now, the two worlds have collided: There’s a P&P comic book, and geek girls everywhere can rejoice.

Are readers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez smarter than fans of Nicholas Sparks? If you loved Lolita, does that mean you’ve got more going on upstairs than someone whose favorite book is He’s Just Not That Into You? We book nerds want to believe the answer’s a resounding “yes” (though, if pressed, we’ll admit that one can lead a fulfilling life without being able to name five characters from Pride and Prejudice) and now, we have been vindicated. Sort of.